Studio portrait of an elderly gentleman in an ill-fitting frock coat. Hobart Town, 1866-67.

Albumen print photograph, carte de visite format, 102 x 61 mm (mount); verso imprinted ‘Photographed by G. Cherry, 80 Liverpool Sweet, Hobart Town’; both the albumen print and mount are in fine condition.

A superb studio portrait by George Cherry, one of Tasmania’s most significant pioneer photographers.

English artist George Cherry arrived at Norfolk Island early in 1849 to take up the position of superintendant of convicts. It is known that he had a daguerreotype camera and that he took views of the island, which he later advertised for sale in Hobart Town in 1852 after his move to Van Dieman’s Land. No surviving Cherry daguerreotype of Norfolk Island has been identified.

In Hobart Town Cherry specialised in hand-coloured daguerreotype portraits. By 1860 he was producing ‘Photographic Portraits on paper, glass and ivory, and on canvas from life to locket size, highly finished in Crayon, Water or Oil Colours and warranted to be as durable as the most permanent oil paintings’ (DAAO).